Five Things We Learnt On Friday

Lewis Hamilton took his first Sprint Pole in almost four years on Friday.

Lewis Hamilton finally kickstarted his Ferrari career as he took sprint Pole on a windy Friday ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and McLaren's Oscar Piastri.

McLaren had gone into the weekend as favourites, however, went out early in SQ3 and were caught out as the newly laid track ramped up late in the session.

It means championship leader Lando Norris will start tomorrow's Sprint race from P6, behind George Russell and Charles Leclerc.

But what did we learn from the days running?

Lewis Hamilton is settling in

For the past couple of seasons, and especially last year, Lewis Hamilton has looked like a different man in qualifying, often struggling to get up to speed and so there were worries he could be a long way off the pace of new teammate Charles Leclerc, who is renowned for his one lap pace. However, Lewis might have proved on Friday, that if he has a car he feels comfortable with, he can still produce the performances of old. To take pole and put in a lap two-tenths quicker than his teammate speaks volumes about the quality Lewis still possesses.

Speaking afterwards, Lewis said: "Coming here, the car really came alive from lap one. We made some great changes - the team did a fantastic job through the break to get the car ready.

"I'm a bit in shock. I can't believe we actually got a pole in the sprint. It's not the main race, so we've got work to do for tomorrow, but this puts us in good stead for the race."

It’s now just all about whether he can do it consistently because if he can, he could be a real force to be reckoned with - oh and it seems all the talk of Lewis's struggles with his race engineer have mysteriously disappeared....

The pressure is building on Liam Lawson

Liam Lawson’s torrid start at Red Bull continued with quite literally the worst possible result. P20 and three-tenths off SQ2 is not how Liam would have wanted to bounce back from Melbourne. Liam apologised over the radio and stated he wasn’t able to get his tyre temperatures down leading him to have a lap time deleted.

And unfortunately for Liam, it didn’t seem to be a one-off thing, as he struggled all throughout FP1 as well.

If there's one positive for Liam it's that in tomorrow's sprint he can just use the time to get comfortable with the car and essentially use it as a testing session, but the pressure is ramping up for the Kiwi.

Ollie Bearman impresses

A tiny bit of pressure had been building on Ollie after a really disappointing weekend in Melbourne, but unlike Liam he bounced back on Friday with a storming couple of laps in what is quite possibly the slowest car. Ollie out-qualified teammate Esteban Ocon by over 4 tenths in SQ1 and then just missed out on a shock SQ3 to finish P12 which certainly impressed his boss Ayao Komatsu. He'll hope to continue the form into Saturday where he has an outside chance of points.

Jack Doohan is quick

Reliability issues saw Jack’s FP1 session hampered, however even with limited running, the underfire driver still set a quicker time than teammate Pierre Gasly in SQ1. The pair were knocked out, however it’s quite the feat for Jack to out-qualify his vastly experienced teammate. Pierre complained that he lost three-tenths going into turn 1 due to being blocked by one of the RBs, but either way, Doohan still got the quicker time on the board, and it's not the first time. Last week Jack went quicker in Q1 before being caught out by yellow flags in Q2, and so for a driver many expected not to last the season, he’s certainly proving many wrong.

Albon still has the measure on Sainz

Alex Albon continued to impress in his Williams, making it to the final part of qualifying once again. Even though he was only able to manage P9, he continued to lay down a marker for his teammate Carlos Sainz - out-qualifying him in SQ2 by 8 tenths. Sainz complained about seat problems and didn’t seem entirely comfortable, however, Alex is doing all he can against an opponent many expect to come in and walk all over him. It’s definitely a positive sign for Williams that Alex is clearly able to compete at Sainz’s level, as from his time at Ferrari, we all know how quick the Spaniard can be. It’s definitely the teammate pairing to watch as the season goes on, and having two top-quality drivers could be the difference in a tight midfield.

Elsewhere there were other talking points, Stroll continuing to impress as he out-qualified Alonso and seemed to have his smile back, Kimi looking a little more settled and Bortoleto once again having the measure on his teammate over one lap.

Ahead of the rest of the weekend, this seems to be the pecking order as of now:

1 - McLaren

2 - Ferrari

3 - Red Bull

4 - Mercedes

5 - RB

6 - Williams

7 - Aston Martin

8 - Alpine

9 - Haas

10 - Sauber

Be sure to check out our Twitter/X page we have launched recently for updates across the weekend! - @F1Shef